The White Stripes' Stumbling Block

Apart from its satisfying lead-off single, "Blue Orchid," we're not really feeling "Get Behind Me Satan," the new album from Detroit's White Stripes. While the songs are catchy enough, they are undone by deliberate idiosyncracies, such as a distinct overreliance on the common household xylophone and an odd Appalachian fetish. Take "The Doorbell," for example. This has an appealing, schoolyard kind of a beat, and might be a good theme song for a sitcom about a group of post-collegiate layabouts living in a loft in Williamsburg. But we'd be astonished if Jack White has a doorbell, even more so if he knows the kind of people (Girl Scouts and neighbors, mostly) who might reasonably be expected to come by and ring one.

The album takes its title from the Gospel of Mark (it's a rebuke to Peter), and from that highly self-conscious point on, seems to call attention to itself lyrically. The worst lyrics on the album are those of the song "Passive Manipulation," quoted here in their entirety:

Women, listen to your mothers
Don't just succumb to the wishes of your brothers
Take a step back, take a look at one another
You need to know the difference...
Between a father and a lover
(repeat)

This is a point that was made more subtly by John Mayer in his 2004 radio hit "Daughters." And we like John Mayer, but when the White Stripes are more ham-fisted than a Grammy-winning "Song of the Year," they are definitely in trouble.

"Get Behind Me Satan" is released tomorrow. Go ahead and pick it up if you like riding on the back of a hay wagon, with your feet dangling in the cloud of dust kicked up by its wheels, drinking moonshine and wearing a hat with a hole in it. Otherwise, we would stick with "White Blood Cells."